Centers don't come along often

Mark Bauch had just thrown down a rim-quivering dunk.

"We watch him now and we giggle," said Jay Pivec, Bauch's basketball coach at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. "You see him now and you ask, 'Is that the same kid?' "

That question also is asked about Hamish Mickouiza, the backup center at MCTC. Bauch, who stands 6 feet 11, is the starter.

The first time Pivec saw Bauch, he said to himself, "This kid looks like a basketball player." He said the same thing about Mickouiza. The assessment wasn't hard to make; Bauch is 6-foot-11, and Mickouiza is 6-10.

"Both of them had to duck to get through the doorway," Pivec said. "That's always a good sign."

As a coach always on the lookout for skilled big men, Pivec was intrigued. Then he saw Bauch and Mickouiza play. Or try to play.

Bauch was a wonder. He had Pivec wondering how someone that tall could be so inept at basketball.

"He couldn't walk and chew gum," the coach said.

Bauch attended Como Park High School and didn't go out for the basketball team until his senior year. He appeared in five games, then quit. He wasn't playing enough to suit him.

After taking a year off following high school, a friend urged Bauch to try out for Pivec's team at MCTC. Bauch, who was 6-8 as a senior at Como Park, had grown to nearly 7 feet tall. He figured maybe Pivec would see something his high school coach didn't.

Nope. Pivec cut him.

Two years later, Mickouiza showed up. He was born in the Congo and spent his teen years in Paris, where his father was a corporate executive. After high school, Mickouiza moved to North Carolina to live with a cousin. He didn't like it there and wanted to move; he just wasn't sure where. He looked at a map and noticed Minnesota smack in the middle of the country. He went online and did some research. He liked what learned.

With his size, Mickouiza figured basketball was the sport for him. He never played on a team, but he'd been in a few pickup games and read a lot about it in magazines. So he came to Minnesota with the intent of playing basketball.

He walked into the gym at MCTC early last season and boldly announced he was better than former Marauders center Jerry Holman, who went from MCTC to the University of Minnesota. Mickouiza also announced he wanted to play a year of college ball and then go to the NBA.

He had delusions of grandeur. When he tried out for the Marauders, Pivec cut him.

"He couldn't turn to the basket without dropping the ball," Pivec said. "Kids laughed at him."

Nobody is laughing now. Not at Mickouiza. Not at Bauch. These two young men are living, breathing definitions for words like resilience and patience and tenacity.

Bauch, who quit MCTC after being cut, went out for the team the following season and made it as a backup. He was redshirted last season and took classes part time. Now a sophomore, he is averaging eight points and seven rebounds a game and has scholarship offers from four Division II schools, including South Dakota and Lewis University in Illinois.

"My first year here, I didn't think basketball was for me," said Bauch, who takes an MTC bus to school every day from his St. Paul home. "I couldn't post up. I couldn't shoot a three. I'm way better now, but I still have a lot of work to do. It's weird for me to get scholarship offers. I've never even been on a plane. I'm scared of them. I saw 'The Buddy Holly Story.' "

Bauch has helped the Marauders (21-2) win every game since opening the season with two losses. And when he's not playing, Mickouiza is, averaging two points and 2.5 rebounds a game.

"I went into the locker room and I cried when I was cut," Mickouiza said. "Coach told me I could make it, I just wasn't ready. He said to work at it and come back."

That's just what Mickouiza did from the time he was cut until the start of this season. He worked at his game, worked at doing the little things.

"I didn't know how to shoot free throws when I came here," Mickouiza said. "I didn't know how to hold the ball."

Now he can hold the ball and his own. Pivec believes Mickouiza can be a Division I player after another season at MCTC. Pivec, by the way, knows a few things about talent. In 15 seasons at MCTC, he has a 318-83 record and has had 60 players continue their basketball careers at four-year colleges.

"Body-wise, Hamish should at the University of Minnesota. Then you see him play and you say he shouldn't be at the U," Pivec said. "But the potential is there."

The potential always was there for Bauch and Mickouiza. It just took a while for them to tap into it.